Lost and Found
by Rasiaa
Summary: He doesn't know how the kid manages to get in the skaters' lounge.


_Yuuri is thirteen, Viktor is still sixteen; this is the Grand Prix, which takes place early Dec._  
 _Naturally, this is the first meeting Viktor forgot, because he is an airhead._  
 _..._  
 _The broken English is a combination of what I hear from people who are just learning the language and the words I learned first when I was taking French classes. I tried to make it realistic without being insulting._

* * *

He doesn't know how the kid manages to get in the skaters' lounge.

Poor thing is _maybe_ nine. All Viktor can figure about the boy's language is that it's either Chinese or Japanese. He'd be able to tell better if he could understand him through the hyperventilating and the crying.

He doesn't know what to do with kids in general or tears in general or other people, really, so he's way out of his depth.

Tucking his hair behind his ear, he kneels down and grabs at the boy's hands. "Hey," he murmurs, trying to catch his eyes. "It'll be alright. I'm Viktor, but you can call me Vitya, okay?"

The boy calms just slightly, but tears still leak from his eyes and now they're hitting Viktor's hands. Viktor reaches up. The child flinches, just slightly, but it's enough to make him stop. "I'm not going to hurt you," Viktor says, eyes flickering between the boy's. The boy blinks, breath stuttering still, and Viktor reaches out again. He moves the glasses and brushes his thumb under the child's eye, wiping away the tears.

"It'll be alright," he says again. "Can you speak English?"

After a second it doesn't seem like he'll be getting an answer to that one. Viktor bites the inside of his lip and debates what to do. He could get security, of course, but he's not sure how well the kid would like that. He's just starting to calm, hitching breaths and slower tears. His gaze is locked onto Viktor like he's going to vanish at any second and Viktor doesn't want to leave him.

He's just glad his performance for tonight is already over.

"Do you want something to eat? Drink? I've got things in my locker," Viktor says. He stands up, keeping a hold of the boy's hand, and gestures to the locker room off the lounge with his head. "This way."

The boy follows, hesitant. His crying has more or less stopped but apparently his mother had taught him about strangers. Viktor's glad.

He opens his locker and pulls out an unopened plastic water bottle and a packet of crackers. He kneels down again and offers them to the boy. Once the boy has them, Viktor gathers his hair and uses the hair tie on his wrist to tug it up into a messy bun. A few strands escape but that's normal.

"It's very pretty," the boy says. His voice is soft, shy. Viktor blinks a bit, surprised.

"My hair?" he asks. The boy nods, a slight flush to his cheeks. "Thank you. Can you tell me your name?"

"Yuuri," he murmurs, eyes flitting to the side. "Katsuki Yuuri."

His voice is heavily accented. Viktor's more or less trained to soften the heavy tones that come from St. Petersburg, but Yuuri clearly hasn't much practice with that. "Yuuri," Viktor repeats. The oriental version of this name puts more pressure on the vowels than he's used to.

The boy smiles though, so it can't have been too bad. "Where are your parents, Yuuri?" Viktor asks.

Yuuri looks blank. Not _fluent_ in English, then. "Your mom? Dad?" Viktor tries.

"Okaa-san?" Yuuri says. Viktor has no idea what that means, so he shrugs. "I don't know," Yuuri says next. "I was…" he flounders, looking up as he tries to remember the English terms. He looks like he's on the verge of tears again.

"Want me to help find her?" Viktor asks.

"Finding," Yuuri says, "Yes, yes, please."

Viktor nods and stands. He opens his mouth to suggest different places to look, then pauses. He doesn't know how to communicate if the boy doesn't have a good grasp on English.

So he guides him out of the skaters' area and into the empty halls. By the sound of it, someone's performing. "Do you skate?" he asks before he can think better of the vocabulary.

"Yes," Yuuri says. Viktor looks down at him in surprise. "I skate for Japan in autumn."

"In juniors?" Viktor says. "You're thirteen?" He never would've guessed that. The boy barely comes up to his waist in height.

"Yes," Yuuri says again. "I skate for almost," he frowns, "... _hachi, ku, juu_ \- ten years."

"You train in Tokyo?" he asks next, leading him down another hall. They're closer to the rink now, the yelling louder.

"No. Hasetsu."

They round another corner to find a young woman crying rather hysterically on a security guard, speaking in rapid-fire Japanese. The guard looks like he's at a loss, which makes sense, since they're in China.

" _Okaa-san_!" Yuuri shouts, nearly tripping over himself in his haste to get to her.

She stops, turning toward them. She gasps her son's name and drops to her knees as he collides with her. She catches sight of Viktor over Yuuri's shoulder. Releasing her son, she stands and walks over to him.

"Thank you," she says, clearly even less familiar with English than her son, given the clumsy way the words are delivered. "My Yuuri - thank you, Nikiforov-san."

She bows low, much to Viktor's surprise and bewilderment. "It's okay!" he says, smiling awkwardly.

"Too many people," she says, righting herself. "Yuuri is small. People much…" Viktor is vaguely amused to see that she makes the same facial expression as Yuuri did. "Taller," she finally says.

Viktor can see what she means. Yuuri shuffles up behind his mother to look at him. "Thank you, Vitya," he says, retreating back into whatever shell he'd been in before. The woman reaches around to pull him closer.

"Vitya!"

Viktor sighs dramatically, sending a long-suffering look to Yuuri before he spins on his heel to face his coach, who looks like he's about to explode.

"Where have you been?" he demands in Russian. "Where are your skates? You need to be on the ice for the medal ceremony!"

"Okay, okay," Viktor says. "One more minute."

"One more-?"

Viktor turns back to the boy and smiles before looking at the security guard. "Let them back in the lounge later! I'll take photos with them!"

"Vitya!" Yakov shouts, sounding shocked and outraged. "You can't just-"

But the guard nods so Viktor ignores his coach's increasingly indignant spluttering. He kneels down again and opens his arms.

Yuuri's eyes grow wide behind his glasses before he moves forward to accept the hug. Viktor smiles again, pressing a kiss to the boy's head before releasing him. "I hope to compete against you someday, Yuuri," he says. "Good luck!"

"Ah - good luck," Yuuri says, sounding faint and awed.

Yakov hauls Viktor up by his arm and drags him back to the lounge. Viktor waves goodbye.

* * *

 _In case it wasn't clear, Yuuri is pretty short as a child, and at an event like this, there's a lot of people so he got a bit turned around. He's old enough not to be holding his mother's hand, and he didn't run off intentionally, but he's also young enough to be suitably alarmed. Also. They're in China. Since Yuuri's not international, Yu-Topia isn't bringing a bunch of foreigners, so English is not a thing._  
 _I'm thinking they're here as a late birthday gift, haha. Bonus that Yuuri ran into Viktor, however bad the situation._  
 _I love them._


End file.
